CHAPTER II.

DANTE.

The De Vulgari Eloquio: Its history and authentication[417]
Its importance[418]
And the scanty recognition thereof[418]
Abstract of its contents: The “Vulgar Tongue” and “Grammar”[419]
The nature, &c., of the gift of speech[420]
Division of contemporary tongues[421]
And of the subdivisions of Romance[422]
The Italian Dialects: Some rejected at once[423]
Others—Sicilian, Apulian, Tuscan, and Genoese[424]
Venetian: Some good in Bolognese[424]
The “Illustrious” Language none of these, but their common measure[425]
Its four characteristics[425]
The Second Book—Why Dante deals with poetry only[426]
All good poetry should be in the Illustrious[427]
The subjects of High Poetry—War, Love, Virtue[427]
Its form: Canzoni[427]
Definition of Poetry[428]
Its styles, and the constituents of the grand style[428]
Superbia Carminum[428]
Constructionis elatio[429]
Excellentia Verborum[429]
Pexa et hirsuta[430]
The Canzone[430]
Importance of the book[431]
Independence and novelty of its method[432]
Dante’s attention to Form[433]
His disregard of Oratory[433]
The influence on him of Romance[434]
And of comparative criticism[434]
The poetical differentia according to him[435]
His antidote to the Wordsworthian heresy[436]
His handling of metre[436]
Of diction[437]
His standards of style[438]
The “Chapter of the Sieve”[439]
The pexa[440]
The hirsuta[441]
Other critical loci in Dante[441]
The Epistle to Can Grande[441]
The Convito[442]
Dante on Translation[443]
On language as shown in prose and verse[443]
Final remarks on his criticism[444]

CHAPTER III.

THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.

Limitations of this chapter[447]
The material it offers[448]
The Formal Arts of Rhetoric[448]
And of Poetry[449]
Examples of Indirect Criticism: Chaucer[450]
Sir Thopas[451]
Froissart[453]
Richard of Bury[455]
Petrarch[456]
Boccaccio[457]
His work on Dante[457]
The Trattatello[458]
The Comento[459]
The De Genealogia Deorum[460]
Gavin Douglas[464]
Further examples unnecessary[466]
INTERCHAPTER III.
§ I. THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MEDIÆVAL PERIOD TO LITERARY CRITICISM[469]
§ II. THE POSITION, ACTUAL AND POSSIBLE, OF LITERARY CRITICISM AT THE RENAISSANCE[481]
——————————
INDEX[487]

BOOK I
GREEK CRITICISM